Dawn of Twilight

Patch 4.3 arrives. It has been 22 weeks since our last content update, and 51 weeks (almost one year) since the release of Cataclysm. This is the mother of all patches because:

Our intent is to start acting even more on our Mists of Pandaria philosophies of encouraging players to approach the content they want to, how they want to, and be able to work toward meaningful player progression.

That statement is a side commentary that accompanied yesterday’s announcement about Conquest point reward changes. All the changes in 4.3 are pointing toward the envisioned gaming philosophy for the next expansion.

Changes for hunters primarily come from buffing the Beast Mastery and Survival talent trees. It appears that the changes to Focus Fire and T.N.T. never made it to the official patch notes that was posted before the entire Battle.net site went down for maintenance. For now, I will mark them as undocumented until they have been confirmed in-game.

Beast Mastery

Animal Handler now increases Attack Power by 30%, up from 25%.

Focus Fire now lasts 20 sec, up from 15 sec. (Undocumented)

Widow Venom now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Survival

Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 15%.

T.N.T. now has a 10/20% chance to proc, up from 6/12%. (Undocumented)

Pets

Burrow Attack (Worm ability) now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.

Froststorm Breath (Chimera ability) now does approximately 20% more damage, and has an increased area of effect.

Monstrous Bite (Devilsaur ability) now reduces the target’s healing received by 25%, up from 10%.

Although there were no changes planned for Marksmanship (which indicates just how strong the tree is already), there is a puzzling change that affected Marksmanship’s Trueshot Aura buff. Results are still inconclusive as to how this affects the DPS balance between hunters and other melee classes.

All raid and party buffs which grant group members 10% increased attack power have been changed slightly. They continue to provide 10% increased ranged attack power, but now provide 20% increased melee attack power.

Trueshot Aura: The melee attack power bonus from this raid buff has been increased to 20%, up from 10%. The ranged attack power bonus remains 10%.

If you are part of a progression raiding guild, it’s time to dust off that guild standard because it’s gotten a bit more useful.

Guild Standards are again useable in Firelands. Duration has been increased to 15 minutes, the effect has a 100 yard radius, and now affects dead players.

5 responses

First things I’ll do when I log on tomorrow (it doesn’t release until wednesday in Europe) is transmog to Golden Bow of Quel’Thalas, change Serpent Sting-glyph to Arcane Shot-glyph in my SV spec and either check out the new heroics or Raid Finder before the raid in the evening. :) Really looking forward to this!
Hmm, must remember to check up when new BH-boss is released and when next Darkmoon Fairie is as well.

I’ve almost completely forgotten that most Survival hunters will be changing that Serpent Sting glyph today. I’m a rebel and like to use Kill Command in my rotation, so… I probably won’t do that immediately since I never use Arcane Shot.

So what I’m noticing is with the buff to Expolsive shot and the loveliness that Arcane brings especially glyphed, I am thinking Mastery may become our best option. Just a hunch…I haven’t yet tried pushing all mastery and treating haste like Hit (reach a minimum cap and them dump everything to Mastery).

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Loronar is the author of "35 Yards Out", a World of Warcraft blog focusing on Marksmanship hunters. He is one of the first bloggers to write specifically from a Marksmanship perspective and has remained dedicated to the talent tree since 2007.